


Something Hungry under the Stone

by Annariel



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Gen, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 23:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3095795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Silver finds the remains of a scientific team inside an ancient barrow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Hungry under the Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lost_spook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/gifts).



> Thanks to fredbassett for beta-reading.

Silver would have been happier if there had been an operative with him. 

He glanced up into the dark sky above. The stars appeared and disappeared as clouds drifted across them. Somewhere, in the distance, came the sound of engines buzzing over the landscape. There was a war on and humans always behaved in particularly foolish ways during a war, especially one like this that had engulfed most of the planet. The operatives were spread too thin, fighting the fires that humanity was setting. Silver was on his own.

Somewhere close by, an electric generator was running. Silver followed the spiking sensation of current flowing through wires until he brushed through a heavy black blanket tacked across an opening. As he pulled it aside, bright light flooded out and he had a fleeting impression of a grassy mound and a stone lintel before he stepped inside and let the blanket fall back behind him.

He was in a stone chamber constructed from roughly-tooled uneven slabs of stone. In one corner of the chamber a generator was running, powering a couple of airfield lamps that flooded the chamber with a light that drained the colour from the surroundings.

There was no one there. Packing crates were scattered around the room. A small camping gas stove was burning in one corner with a tin of soup bubbling on it. Pewter knives and forks were laid out on a packing crate. Silver walked over and turned off the gas. Someone had been chopping vegetables; a small knife lay on a wooden board next to a pile of carrots and potatoes.

What had these people been doing? he wondered. 

He lifted the lid on one of the packing crates and poked inside: Geiger counters, heavy cables, ammeters and voltmeters. More equipment lay scattered around the room some of it just unpacked, some already set out and wired together. He followed the largest of the cables as it trailed into the back of the barrow, down a small slope and into a second chamber. He paused in the entrance. The cable had been looped around a single standing stone at the back of the cave and earthed somewhere beyond it. Silver looked at the standing stone and then down at the heavy rubber insulation of the cable that was carrying power to it. He crouched down, his fingers reaching for the heavy cable and then he drew them back.

Below the hum of electricity he felt an older power, something waking up and slowly bringing its attention to bear on the barrow and its contents. Silver walked back into the first chamber and moved over to the chopping board. He wasn't surprised to see the faintest trace of blood on the blade of the knife. Someone had cut themselves while preparing the soup. The blood had fallen onto the floor of the cavern, to the heavy stone slab that a long ago civilisation had placed there. Silver grazed his fingers over the floor and found the spot where the blood had fallen and been absorbed into the stone. A hot spot. He sensed a low level hunger and guessed that it had briefly flared into ravening life, consuming the offerings within the cavern, leaving only the cold metal of the equipment behind. Silver wondered idly what the people had been planning to do in the barrow, what their instruments had detected that had brought them here to pour electricity into the stones.

It didn't really matter. Silver cut the power long enough to detach the cable that led to the standing stone. He dragged the two airfield lamps outside and placed them on top of the grassy mound. Then he switched the power on again and walked away. Behind him the bright lights shone up into the sky and the drone of aircraft engines changed as the bombers altered their course.


End file.
